This invention relates generally to apparatus for displacing solid and liquid mixtures and is particularly directed to a vacuum jet apparatus for drawing and blending a solid and liquid mixture and removing it from a holding container.
Prior art arrangements for removing a solid/liquid mixture from a holding container have generally involved the use of a rotary pump having a propeller, or impeller, for directing the mixture under pressure through a discharge hose. Where the solid portion of the mixture is deposited upon the lower surface of the holding container, as is generally the case, such pumps are generally limited to the removal of the liquid portion of the mixture leaving the solid material in the holding container. This is highly undesirable in many applications where it is advantageous and possibly essential to collect both portions of the mixture. Such is the case in manure pits wherein waste from livestock collects in a pit located beneath a structure in which the animals are housed. The liquid and solid portions of the waste material differ in fertilizer value, with the solid portion generally providing more concentrated amounts of fertilizing materials. Thus, it is highly desirable for the farmer to remove all of the material, both liquid and solid, which collects in the manure pit and to remove it in such a way that the fertilizer value of the overall mixture is generally uniform and predictable.
Apparatus for performing such a task should ideally be inexpensive, lightweight and easily manipulated and maneuvered by an individual worker. In addition, the displacement mechanism should be relatively uncomplicated and should not require design and operating considerations of such parameters as effluent tube size, the rate of fluid flow from a rotating propeller in the mechanism, and the drawing or displacement rate of a storage tank into which the material is directed. In addition, the liquid/solid mixture withdrawing mechanism should be reliable and unlikely to be damaged by a mismatch between the aforementioned parameters.
The present invention is intended to provide a vacuum jet apparatus which exhibits all of the aforementioned characteristics in providing for the efficient, safe and reliable removal of a solid/liquid mixture from a storage tank to a vacuum tank which agitates the mixture as it is removed to ensure that even heavy solid deposits on the bottom of the storage tank are removed therefrom.